One evening, shortly after the birth of my youngest sister, Maria, I found my mother crying in the kitchen while she was preparing our supper. It must have been 1911 or 1912. There were six of us children then, three boys and three girls.

     Mother told us that father had to go to a hospital for an appendectomy. The nearest hospital was in Manila, the capital city, about 70 miles to the north. One had to travel torturous roads through the mountains and hills or travel overnight by the only coastal steamer.

     In those days, the automobile was still unknown in our area, so Father had to travel by "caromata", a horse drawn two wheel carriage. He would journey first to Batangas, the provincial capital about 15 miles from Taal, and then go by train to Manila.

     Father left while we children were asleep. When I woke and discovered that he had gone, I felt a tremendous loss. I cried because I thought he had gone on a pleasure trip or a short business trip without me. This was the first time that Father had gone without me.

During Father's absence, our paternal grandmother, Modesta, stayed with us to help Mother with the children. Her presence lightened my sense of loss. We all loved our "Inang Muding" dearly. I asked her almost daily when Father would come home and I always received the same reply "soon".
	Modesta Solis

     My mother explained to me that Father had gone to Manila to be operated on and that he would be home as soon as the operation was completed. I accepted her explanation, although I did not know what "operation" meant. Disease and death were still unknown to me. At that age, I had never even seen a dead person. A state of childhood innocence protected me from worrying over my father's condition.

     After a week or so, we received the good news that Father was coming home. He would be traveling by steamer because road travel was too precarious for him in his condition. I found out later that Father left the hospital to come home against the doctor's advice. He had not fully recovered from the operation.

     When Father arrived, he was carried in a reclining chair by our neighbors to Grandma Modesta's home a few blocks away from ours. He was put in the bed that was waiting for him. It seemed strange to me that he did not even sit up in bed when we children came and hugged him. Still more strange to me was Mother and Grandma Modesta's crying. I was not crying. I was glad that Father was home again and I looked forward to resuming our visits to Lemery and swimming in the bay, as we used to do.

     As I can recall, Father's operation was successful; but in those early days before modern wonder drugs, the recuperation period from major operations was long. Before Father was fully recovered, he had insisted on coming home. This was understandable, as Mother had just had her last baby when Father left for the hospital.

     The trip home from Manila must have had an adverse effect on his condition. The local doctor visited him daily, sometimes twice a day. A week or so later, our parish priest came to give him the last rites. At the age of five, these things did not have any meaning to me. I did not realize Father was dying.

     Shortly after he received his last rites, Grandma Modesta and Mother started making clothes for us children. They cried as they fitted the small black garments to us. I could not understand why. Even when our neighbors began making the coffin, I did not sense the impending loss we were to suffer.

     In those days, there was no funeral home nor any establishment that made coffins in Taal or Lemery. In most cases, a coffin was hastily made after a person's death. In Father's case, death must have been expected momentarily, as all the preparations I mentioned were made.

     Early one morning, I was awakened by the weeping of Mother and Grandma Modesta. The two older children were crying also. I did not cry. I did not know what "death" meant either.

     We were led in prayer by Grandma, after which we put on our recently made black clothes. Relatives and neighbors began arriving. I was proud of my new outfit when people remarked how good I looked. Grandma's house was full of people. The children were ushered out of the house when Father was placed in the coffin.

     At ten that same morning, the funeral cortege started. They took Father to the church, where a high mass was celebrated. As was the custom, the pall bearers carried the body from the church all the way to the town's only cemetery a distance of about half a mile with the mourners following the body.

     After the funeral, we returned to Grandma's house where a fiesta type meal, which had been prepared by relatives, was waiting for us. After the meal, Mother and we children went to our home. It was then that I knew what "death" meant. I realized Father was never coming home again and I cried for the first time. I had lost my Father, my companion. I would miss all the trips to the beach and other things we did together.

     As I look back on that day, I thank God for keeping me in total innocence where death was concerned. God spared me the agony. Poor Mother, I did not realize the burden she was to bear.